Download Review of The shadow of God and the hidden imam: Religion

Review of The shadow of God and
the hidden imam: Religion, political
order, and societal change in Shi'ite Iran
from the beginning to 1980, by S. A.
Arjomand
Author: James Winston Morris
Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/4039
This work is posted on eScholarship@BC,
Boston College University Libraries.
Published in History of Religions, vol. 29, no. 2, p. 192, 1989
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CITATION:
The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Societal
Change in Shi'ite Iran from the Beginning to 1980, by S. A. Arjomand, Chicago, 1984.
In History of Religions, vol. 29, no. 2 (1989), p. 192.
REVIEW:
The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Societal
Change in Shiite Iran from the Beginning to 1890. By SAID AMIR ARJOMAND. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1984. Pp. xii+355.
Arjomand's detailed and creative application of Weberian categories to a central event
in Iranian history, the gradual political establishment of a Twelver "Shiite hierocracy" (or
"orthodoxy" of legal scholars) under the Safavid dynasty in Iran (1501-1722), seems
destined to become a classic in its field, as more specialized historians and sociologists
begin to test his many provocative interpretations, or to apply those hypotheses in other
Islamic contexts. The historical core of his study is preceded by a survey of older Persian
ideals of sacred kingship and the millenarian Shiite "extremist" movements that led to the
successes of the early Safavids; and a shorter concluding section traces the role of the
"orthodox" Shiite clerical party in its interactions with the Qajar dynasty and the
religiopolitical alternatives posed by the Shaykhis, Babis, and Bahais during the period
1785-1890.
Islamic history in all periods and regions offers inexhaustible material for those
sharing Weber's interest in "religiously motivated sociopolitical transformations," and
Arjomand's detailed study of conflicting Twelver Shiite ideologies in this specific
historical context should provide a healthy antidote to the stereotypes spread today by the
mass media, apologists, and polemicists (on all sides) and by most introductory
discussions of "Islam and politics." Students of religions who do not have any specialized
background in these subjects (or who are simply curious about contemporary events in
Iran) should at least come away from this work with a healthy respect for the remarkable
diversity of forms of Islamic thought and the continued transformations of their political,
ideological dimensions in specific historical and regional contexts.
Finally, the uninitiated reader may need to be reminded that this book's explicit focus
on the relations of Shiite religious ideologies and the struggle for power among a narrow
clerical and political elite necessarily leaves out vast domains of religious life and
practice in Safavid and Qajar Iran (including the often decisive nonpolitical claims and
contents of movements, such as "gnostic Shiism," that are discussed here). Such central
religious phenomena include the ongoing development of "popular" (nonclerical, but not
necessarily millenarian) forms of Shiism throughout various nonurban segments of the
population; a multitude of ethnic minority Sunni groups, including major Sufi orders; the
continued pervasive influence of pre-Safavid mystical poetry (Rumi, Hafez, etc.) in both
elite and popular religious culture; and the deeper popular survival of the myths and
expectations of "sacred kingship," so evident in the unexpected role eventually played by
Khomeini. [JAMES WINSTON MORRIS, Princeton University]